A Dozen Ways to Experience the National Book Festival

Whether you can be in Washington tomorrow or not, there are many ways for everyone to be a part of the 2009 National Book Festival. I came up with at least a dozen:

1. Attend! It’s tomorrow (Sept. 26) from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. EDT on the National Mall (between 7th and 14th), rain or shine. If it’s the former, don’t worry! We have huge tents for the author pavilions, many of which are even bigger than they have been in previous years.

2.Visit the National Book Festival website and get all the 411 you need.

4. Visit our new NBF website that’s optimized for mobile devices, both before you come and on the grounds. Just type in www.loc.gov/bookfest and it will automatically show you the mobile-ready version.

5. Sign up by tomorrow to receive text alerts. Just send BOOK to 61399.

6. Listen to our podcast interviews with 2009 NBF authors, and archives from previous years. (Also available on iTunes.)

7. Watch webcasts of every single author presentation at the National Book Festival. This year’s webcasts will begin to be posted by mid- to late-afternoon tomorrow. Archives from previous years are also available, with many also on iTunes U and YouTube.

8. Follow the action on Twitter (@librarycongress). Use the hashtag #nbf to see what we and everyone else are saying. All tweets with the #nbf hashtag will be shown in real time on large monitors in the Library of Congress Pavilion.

9. If you’re in D.C. tomorrow and are on Twitter, come be a part of our first-ever “Tweet-Up” at 3:30 p.m. at the Library of Congress Pavilion. (PDF site map here.) I’ll be there talking about the Book Festival and some of the things we’re doing with social media, and hopefully scores of fingers will be madly tweeting away.

10. Become a fan of us on Facebook, either the Library’s main page or the new Books and Beyond page, where we’re marking the 2009 NBF by starting a virtual book club.

11. Watch C-SPAN‘s coverage tomorrow. Starting at about 9 a.m. EDT, they will show the authors program from the NBF gala reception. Slated to speak are David Baldacci, Judy Blume, John Grisham, Annette Gordon-Reed, and Julia Alvarez. Then at around 10 a.m., they will broadcast live all day from the festival.

12. Check out the NBF website at washingtonpost.com. Among the highlights are transcripts of three online author chats.

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